News10 Dec 2019


World’s four best vaulters set for Dusseldorf

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USA's Sam Kendricks in action in the pole vault (© AFP / Getty Images)


The top four finishers in the men’s pole vault at the recent World Championships will be in action at the PSD Bank Meeting on 4 February, the second German stop on the 2020 World Athletics Indoor Tour.

USA’s world champion Sam Kendricks, Sweden’s world silver medallist Armand Duplantis, Poland’s world bronze medallist Piotr Lisek and Germany’s Bo Kanda Lita Baehre will line up at Dusseldorf’s Arena-Sportpark in eight weeks’ time for what looks set to be one of the best events of the meeting.

Kendricks, who also won the world title in 2017 and Olympic bronze in 2016, has competed in Dusseldorf just once before, placing second in 2018 with 5.78m. Lisek won on that occasion with 5.86m, just four centimetres shy of the meeting record. European champion Duplantis, meanwhile, will be competing in Dusseldorf for the first time.

Twenty-year-old Lita Baehre, who finished fourth in Doha on his World Championship debut, is no stranger to Dusseldorf as it is his hometown. He also competed at the PSD Bank Meeting in 2018 when he was an U20 athlete and set a then-PB of 5.60m.

“We are very proud to welcome the top four pole vaulters from the World Championships to Düsseldorf in February,” said meeting director Marc Osenberg. “Sam Kendricks, Armand Duplantis and Piotr Lisek are the only athletes to have bettered the six-metre mark this year. Germany also has a big hope in local hero Bo Kanda Lita Baehre. We can look forward to a very exciting competition.”

Organisers for World Athletics